Thirteen

Ric fell asleep with a smile on his face, and he woke up with one, too. He smiled through his morning coffee, the bowl of cold cereal, and all the other morning rituals.

Lily. It was all Lily.

Did everyone feel this way when they were in love? Did every single moment of their lives revolve around the beloved, the way the earth orbits the sun?

It was a wonderful, heady feeling, but he needed to pull it together and get some work done. There was more to being the youth minister than worrying about the future of the day care.

He had programs to organize, most notably a Christmas pageant. It would have to be something that didn’t require great costuming efforts, since all their materials had ended up in sodden piles along the berm earlier in the year.

Maybe this would be the year to do a simple carol sing, along with Bible verses. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. He recalled the intensity of some of the parents about who would be chosen as the stars of the shows—and who wouldn’t be chosen.

God didn’t choose some over the others. This might be a better way to celebrate His love, by having all the youngsters be stars. Shy or outgoing, every one of them would have the chance to shine in their own way.

The day care had grown more, thanks to a change in their licensing, and with more children—and thankfully, more helpers—there would be more balancing and juggling to include them, too.

Later today he’d have to get to the post office. A box of gifts was ready to be shipped to Central America.

This train of thought reminded him that the Parenting with Christ group was meeting in the afternoon, and he needed to prepare for that.

Being in love might be a glorious thing for poets, but it sure wreaked havoc on a minister’s schedule.

❧

Lily stood outside the door of the day care, listening. Eileen began each day with the Lord’s Prayer, and although many of the words were beyond the children’s vocabulary, she was helping them understand.

She had been headed for the kitchen to get a fresh cup of coffee for Ric, but she’d stopped upon hearing Eileen’s voice.

Today Eileen was explaining to them what “trespasses” meant. Through the glass in the door, Lily could see that the day care leader had the line from the Lord’s prayer on the chalkboard: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Being Christlike, she was explaining, meant that we needed to forgive those who had done something bad to us.

Forgiveness. What a beautiful word.

Forgive the past. Forgive Douglas Newton. Forgive herself for ever doubting that God was in charge and that He was seeing her through this time of suffering and that He was always with her, as He always had been and always would be.

She ran into Ric’s office. “It happens, it truly happens,” she said in wonder as she sat in the chair next to him. “He takes away the pain.”

Ric nodded.

All of her worries evaporated as she gave herself to God and renewed her commitment to a life of His service.

“I’ve prayed for this before, but somehow this time something was different. I don’t know what it was. I wonder why God heard my prayer this time, but He didn’t before.”

“Oh, He heard it,” Ric responded. “And He’s been answering it, just as He’s been answering my prayers, but we can’t always discern His ways. We don’t always understand.”

“It’s very complicated,” she said, still feeling a bit overwhelmed.

It was almost too much to focus on at the moment, and she seized upon the first thing she noticed.

“Your coffee!” she said to Ric. “I forgot!”

She stood up and went into the kitchen, his cup in her hand.

Almost absentmindedly, she placed the cup on the counter, ignoring the splash on the white counter.

Why, she wondered, had God chosen to direct her life in this way? Surely she would have been serving His purpose in the Nanny Group had she stayed.

She picked up the empty coffeepot and looked out the window. She could see the trees that ringed the playground leaning toward each other, almost as if they were conferring with each other on this cool October evening. If she listened closely, she could hear their leafy whispers. What were they talking about? What were their secrets?

But that was just fancy. It was the wind bending the trees, and the soft murmurs were only the leaves as the autumn-night breeze snatched them from the trees and flung them into the sky for one last splendid flight before settling to the ground.

This was her favorite time of year, and she had nearly missed it entirely because she had been so caught up in her problems.

Time didn’t stop for her. It marched right on, and she hadn’t heard the lesson of the trees. Move on, too, the trees were saying to her. Bend to His will as we do to the wind’s.

She had a clarity of vision now that she had never had before. The world was not as confusing as it had been, now that she could see it.

The Nanny Group—it all made sense.

Her mind worked it through, piece by piece.

She had been used as an arm of the truth. Through every bit of the circumstances of the Nanny Group, from the moment of that initial discovery of the altered voucher to the understanding she’d just received, the momentum had been toward the truth.

What had happened to her was almost incidental when seen in that light. Through the movement of her life, she had begun the long process of not only bringing Douglas Newton to justice, but stopping a destructive process that would eventually have killed a deserving organization, the Nanny Group. Now the Nanny Group, for all its difficulties, would be stronger and able to serve those in need even better.

And Ric—his faith had been tested again and again. Had he been found wanting in the Lord’s eyes?

No. There had to be another reason, and it would not be hers to know. Ric was the one who had to understand it. Her role in it was to be beside him, as he was beside her, and stand when he was weak, comfort when he was weary, uphold when he faltered.

It wasn’t hers to carry. It was God’s.

The realization brightened her heart.

“He’ll take it if I share it with Him,” she mused out loud. “God is always ready.”

Ric came into the kitchen. “Lily, did you say something?”

She turned to him, the still-empty coffeepot forgotten in her hands.

“Ric, I feel as if a load has been lifted from my soul. God has heard my prayer.”

“It’s going to be all right,” he said. “I can feel it, too.”

He took the coffeepot from her hands. “Here, I think I’d better do this.”

As he found a filter and measured the grounds into the basket, he continued, “Just because we prayed and we have a good feeling about it, that doesn’t mean God is going to make things go our way.”

“A bicycle prayer,” Lily said.

“A bicycle prayer? What does that mean?”

“Oh, that’s from Todd, of course. He explained to me that I wasn’t supposed to pray for a new bicycle because that isn’t what prayer is all about.”

A smile played over Ric’s face. “Were you trying to pray for a bicycle?”

She shook her head and laughed. “If I were praying for transportation, I’d select something with a motor and four wheels and a heater, thank you very much. No, this was a bit more general than that.”

“I remember the lesson. He must have gotten that from Shiloh,” Ric said. “It was one of those ‘Which would you pray for?’ exercises, and as I recall, a bicycle was one of the choices.”

“Todd said no, I hope.”

He grinned. “I think he had the right answer, sure. A few of the kids said no, they wouldn’t pray for a bicycle, and just as I was feeling rather smug about having taught the lesson so well, I found out it was because they already had one.”

“There’s nothing to teach you humility like a child,” Lily agreed.

“True. Anyway, we have to face the fact that at any moment we may get another surprise, and we need to remember to keep sharing it with God.”

“And it’s not going to go away overnight. Those memories are still there,” she said. “And I don’t know if I want them to go away entirely because they’re there, in place, as a learning tool for me.”

He nodded. “Good point. They do serve a purpose, although we may not like to acknowledge it.”

He poured the water into the pot and switched on the brewer. Soon the warm aroma of coffee filled the small kitchen.

“I really do believe in the power of prayer,” Ric said as the coffeemaker perked its way through its brewing cycle.

“Plus, think about what God has done with trouble in the world. Look at how He’s reworked this—the flood, the problems rising from the Nanny Group, the situation with Victoria Campbell—somehow it’s converged and become something wonderful: the day care.”

Ric poured her a fresh cup of coffee, but she left it untouched on the counter.

“You know what else I realized tonight?” Lily went on. “I don’t have to shoulder it alone any longer. I mean, I sort of knew it all along, but now I really know. With the cross, He took my burden. He carried all of that with Him to the hill.”

He didn’t answer at first. And somehow, Lily knew that more than one prayer had been answered.

“The burden is lighter when two or more share it,” he said softly.

“Somehow, I think, it had to be you,” she added thoughtfully. “Does it seem to you that our meeting was part of His plan?”

“Nothing happens by accident,” he said. “Nothing. Not even this.”

He took her in his arms, and there, in the church kitchen and in the glorious presence of God and all His angels, he kissed her.

Two lips pressing against each other. It was a simple act. There was nothing in it at all to account for the sudden weakness in Lily’s knees, or her unexplained inability to stand up on her own power, or the singing that resounded in her ears.

Nothing, perhaps, except that it was so long awaited, this kiss, and it was so absolutely, so totally, so incredibly right.

There was promise implicit in this kiss. This man cherished her—she knew that—and he cherished her son. But above all, he cherished their Lord. He would never do anything to hurt her or Todd.

It was a precious point of contact, this kiss. She wanted it to last forever, into the eternity it held forth as a covenant.

They parted, and Lily smiled at Ric.

His blue eyes, as clear and bright as heaven itself, rested on her face as if memorizing it.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he said, his voice husky with emotion.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she responded. “For a while I worried that it might never happen, that I would have to go through my entire life without a kiss from you.”

He ran one finger over her lips. “Perish the thought. Whenever you want a kiss, Lily Chamberlain, all you have to do is ask.”

“I’m asking.”

Their lips met again, and the sweetness of it all renewed itself.

She leaned into him, and he into her, and for the moment they were one.

This love, and it was indeed love, was special, a sacred reward from God.

The love she had known with Barry was holy, too, and she would treasure it and its product, Todd, for as long as she lived. But it had been so terribly foreshortened with his accident, and all she had known was the first bloom of their love.

This love—this love would linger. It would be tested and grow stronger. It would stumble and maybe fall, but it would rise again and be whole. Nothing could stop them. Nothing at all.

Not even the voice of her son as he padded up behind them in his bare feet.

“Eeew,” Todd said. “Cooties.”

❧

Ric sat with the members of the Parenting with Christ group. There were four couples attending now, and earlier in the week he’d had inquiries from two more families who were interested in joining them.

“How are you all feeling?” he asked. “You know, as the seasons change and we head into winter, you’ll probably have some unexpected emotions. You’ll reach for the platter for the Thanksgiving turkey, and you’ll remind yourself that it’s gone. Christmas is going to be tough. Most of you, I’m sure, kept your ornaments and decorations downstairs.”

The couples looked at each other and nodded.

“This is our first Christmas with the twins,” Joy Alfson said. “So we’re going to start fresh. New traditions for the new family members.”

Another woman sighed. “I lost the little snowman my son Alex made me when he was three. It was so cute. He stuck together Ping-Pong balls and covered them with feathers. Why feathers, I don’t know, but it was the cutest thing. Of course the glue didn’t stick, and the Ping-Pong balls came apart, and the feathers fell off, but putting it back together each year was a tradition I’ll truly miss.”

“You know,” Ric said gently, “I don’t have children. I’m not married. But I’m here to offer the children’s side of this whole thing, if I can. Your son will mourn the loss of the snowman, that’s true. But I know Alex, and I’d say he has his eyes firmly on the future. That’s the way it is with children. They look forward.”

“So what are you trying to say?” Linus Alfson asked.

“Keep the traditions,” Rick said. “What you did together is more important than what you had. If you decorated the tree on Christmas Eve, then by all means, do it again. I have a suggestion here from a relief group that recommends each member of the family have an ornament especially for this year. It can be meaningful, or it can be simply appealing to them. But it should be theirs.”

Joy reached over and covered her husband’s hand with her own. “That’s a good idea. We are all starting again, not just the twins, and the ornaments could be the symbol of that.”

The group began to make plans to offer an ornament workshop the first week of Advent, and as their voices eagerly suggested the kinds of ornaments they could make and possible sponsors for the activity, Ric leaned back.

The healing had begun.

❧

“I knew it, I just knew it!” Marnie burst out when Lily entered the office and smiled at Ric. “I saw it in your faces from the moment you walked in here, Lily. ‘Those two are meant for each other,’ I told myself. Yessir, that’s what I said, and that’s what I meant.”

Lily and Ric looked at each other and laughed.

“Marnie, I’d just stepped into the church and was dealing with a recalcitrant little boy who didn’t want to walk into a stinky old church, no way, no how.”

“I know.” Marnie beamed at her in pleased satisfaction.

“You weren’t there,” Ric said. “It was just the three of us.”

“I was watching from the window. I saw you get out of the car, Lily, and I looked down at Ric, and I saw this look of total meltdown on his face. He fell in love with you the first time he saw you.”

“I think you’re jumping the gun,” Lily said. “We haven’t even really dated yet, so bringing in, well, the L-word is, um, gee, premature,” she finished in a rush, horribly aware that she was blushing and totally unable to stop it.

Marnie shrugged. “Love is love. Sometimes it creeps up on you, and sometimes it just comes up and slugs you a good one.”

Ric looked at Lily. “I don’t know, Lily. This love business sounds pretty grim.”

She nodded. “All creeps and slugs. Yuck.”

A sound at the door made them all turn around. Victoria Campbell stood there.

“Come on in,” Lily said. “We’re just chatting about love and slugs and other creeps.”

“Really?” Victoria raised her eyebrows. “And why would you be talking about my ex-husband?”

“Oooh, low blow,” Ric said.

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m teasing, of course. Max and I have an understanding now. I still don’t like it, but I can live with it.” She handed something to Ric. “This came in on my fax machine at Wedding Belles. I don’t know why except that maybe the creep, oops, I mean Max, put down the store’s fax number from habit when he was doing work for you all.”

“What is it?” Marnie asked, crowding in closer to get a better look at it, but Ric took it into his office and shut the door.

“I don’t know. I didn’t read it. Well, okay, I’m in a church so I have to tell the truth. I did read it, sort of. Just enough to know it wasn’t for me—it was for Lily.”

“Victoria Campbell, I’m going to throttle you one of these days,” Marnie threatened.

“Okay, okay. It’s about that Nanny Group thing. It looks like they’ve proven that Douglas Newton has dirty, dirty hands.”

“We knew it would work out,” Marnie said, beaming happily. “Right, Lily?”

Lily nodded.

“Oh, by the way, the Lord giveth and He taketh away, also.” Marnie handed Lily a message. “The mayor’s office called. It looks like the grant for the day care center is a no-go.”

Lily sagged. “Did the mayor say why?”

“I just talked to his secretary. She said the need seems to be decreasing, and that, oh dear, I can’t remember the rest of what she said. You probably should call her and check.”

“How can she say there’s less need? There aren’t enough day cares here in town yet. Even with our increased limits, I still have a list of people waiting to get their children in here.”

Marnie held out a piece of paper. “Here’s the number. Ask for Linda.”

Lily walked down the hall to her office. The spring in her step was gone.

They needed the grant to expand enough to fill the need, even if it was temporary. They couldn’t rely on the former day cares reopening.

Many of the providers that she’d talked to were caught in a double bind. They needed money. They needed jobs. But they couldn’t do their jobs without having their houses rebuilt, which took money, which took jobs. . . .

The upshot of it all was that many had decided to take other jobs out of necessity. When, if ever, they’d return to providing day care was anyone’s guess.

She called the mayor’s office and talked to the secretary.

Linda was sympathetic and understanding as she presented the mayor’s case. But it came down to one irrefutable fact. Like everywhere else in town, there was only a limited amount of money and many hands were reaching out. They needed to make the most effective use of the funds they had.

Lily understood the reasoning behind it. But how could she make them understand that the children were the community’s most valuable resource?

She thanked the secretary and hung up the phone, trying not to feel despair.

Lily cradled her head in her hands and prayed. Lead me along on this, Lord. There’s so much at stake.

Children should be happy. They should not hurt, and this flood had hurt them all badly. They deserved better. No child deserved to suffer, and no mother should have to choose between work and her children.

That had been one of her guiding principles at the Nanny Group, and she’d kept that firmly in mind as she worked through the cases. The files there had teemed with stories of deprivation and loss, those in which the mother had to make a decision based not upon her heart but upon her bank account.

The Nanny Group. In the far reaches of her mind, something glimmered. But try as she might, she could not get ahold of it.

Lily decided to go for a walk in the crisp autumn air to clear her mind. She put on her jacket and started out of her office.

She could hear the happy shouts of the day care, less crowded now that school was in session, and an idea blossomed in her head.

An hour later, she skipped back down the hall to the office.

“Don’t ever give up hope,” she said breathlessly as she flew in, interrupting a very startled Marnie in the act of sharpening a pencil. “God is good.”

“What is this all about?” Ric asked, coming out of his office.

“God is good,” she told him.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the glass of his office door. Her cheeks were bright, her collar was twisted, and her hair was sticking out in all directions, and she didn’t care.

“Yes, God is good,” he agreed, smiling at her, “but slow down.”

“I can’t. I’ve got an appointment at the mayor’s office.”

“I thought we didn’t get the grant,” Marnie said, taking the pencil out of the sharpener at last.

“We didn’t. But we may get something much, much better. I’m off to find out. Pray!”

Within minutes she was seated in front of the mayor himself.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said as he took the papers she handed him. “You’re quite an addition to our little community.”

“Thank you,” she said, still somewhat out of breath from her wild dash to his office. “And thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule for me. I know it’s a bit of a miracle getting in without an appointment like this, and I appreciate it.”

“No problem. What did you want to talk about? The grant? Did Linda explain to you—”

She nodded, aware that she was interrupting him, but too impatient not to. “Yes, she did. But I’ve come to talk to you about something a bit different that may work better for Wildwood.”

And she began her pitch.

She began by explaining about the Nanny Group, and how one population sector in need assisted another. As she spoke, she saw the realization settling on him and watched him gaining her excitement about the project she was proposing.

“We could be an incubator,” she said. “Only we won’t raise chicks, we’ll raise children. And day care businesses.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “It works like a business generator.”

“Precisely, but with the concerns of the flood thrown in. Those who want to return to being day care providers can operate out of our building while reconstruction teams can work together to rebuild the day cares. There are many that still need help. They lost so much, not just structurally but with supplies and even assistants in some cases.”

“Is there going to be enough space for everyone?” the mayor asked.

“I’ve been in contact with most of the people who had day cares before the flood,” she answered. “And I think we have enough little rooms and a large enough kitchen to fulfill most of the need I’ve seen expressed so far.”

“Eventually won’t you put yourself out of business?” he pressed.

“I hope so.” She grinned at him. “Although the fact is we probably won’t. We’ll slow down, but I think there’ll always be the need for more child-care facilities.”

The mayor leaned back in his chair and tapped his pen against his cheek. “I can’t say yes and I can’t say no, but what I can say is that I like the idea very much, and I’m going to propose that it be given a priority in the next round of funding requests. Can you put together a formal proposal for me, say, by next week?”

“No problem at all.”

She left the mayor’s office sedately, but inside she was whirling with delight.

It would work, it would work.

She spent the week laboring on a proposal to establish the incubation center, and when she hand delivered it to the mayor’s secretary the day before it was due, she felt gloriously free.

Linda scanned the proposal briefly, making sure everything was there.

“Looks good,” she said at last. “Everything seems to be in its place. I’ll pass it on to the mayor when he gets back from his meeting.”

“Thanks,” Lily said. “I appreciate it.”

Linda smiled at Lily and added softly. “And good luck. Just between you and me and the stapler, I’ve seen all the proposals so far, and this one is by far the best. Unless something really wild comes up, I think you can count on something from the city.”

The relief Lily felt was overwhelming, and she turned her attention back to those people who meant the most to her: Todd and Ric.

That evening, in celebration of getting the proposal done and submitted, they went to Pizza Wonderama.

The real estate agent was there, too, and when he saw Lily, he hailed her. “I’ve been meaning to call you. I talked to the owners, and they’re willing to deal. Can we get together next week and talk turkey?”

Todd went with her as she set up a time with the agent to see the house again and discuss the price. He could barely contain his excitement at the thought that they might be moving into the little brick house, but something seemed to concern him.

When they returned to their table, she found out. Todd asked her, “Mom, why is that man coming to Thanksgiving dinner at our new house?”

“What?” Lily asked. “I don’t follow you at all. What do you mean?”

“Why is that guy coming to our house for Thanksgiving?” Todd repeated. “You said you were going to talk turkey at the house. And we always have turkey at Thanksgiving. And stuffing.”

Even as she explained to him what the term meant, she realized that Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away. With a bit of planning and some quick action. . .

She mentally totaled up the days. Yes, it was more than possible.

Maybe Todd would get an early Christmas present.

❧

Christmas started early at Resurrection. The Parenting with Christ group had taken the My Ornament project, as they called it, to heart and were gathering enough glass and plastic baubles and beads and ribbons to outfit a thousand trees. Ric hadn’t seen them this happy, or this united in purpose, for a long time.

The children had taken to the revised Christmas program with glee. Ric was pleased to see the more outgoing children partnering with the shyer ones on their own, and they’d come up with a way that everyone would have a role.

Initially some of the children had resisted reciting the Bible verses from memory, and he understood that. Several children had stage fright even thinking about it. One poor little girl cried.

But the braver ones had stepped up to the task. He’d been delighted to hear Todd say to Penny, a girl who was so shy she hid behind her parents’ legs all the time, “Penny, if you go up there with me, I’ll feel brave. You can say, ‘This is Todd,’ and I’ll say, ‘Why, thank you, Penny,’ and I’ll say my Bible verse, and then you and I will bow like on that singing show on television, and we will be done, except maybe we will sing or something. We can stand together, okay, Penny?”

Ric had expected Penny to shake her head at the mention of singing, but instead she smiled and whispered, “Okay.”

It seemed so early, but Ric knew if they didn’t plan it now, they’d be crunched by the time Advent rolled around.

Had it really been—Ric had to stop to count—more than six months since the day the flood had taken over their lives?

In one month it would be Thanksgiving, and then a month after that, Christmas, and then New Years Day, and they would be done with this year.

It was amazing what they had lost—and how much more they had gained.

❧

Lily received a call from Linda at the mayor’s office late on Friday afternoon. The decision on the funding would be announced late on Monday, so she would hear then about the success of her project.

She was on tenterhooks all weekend. It didn’t seem possible for a Saturday to creep by as slowly as this one did. Even shopping and a trip to the Bright Spot for ice cream didn’t move it along faster.

She and Ric went to a movie, leaving Todd with Marnie, but she couldn’t concentrate on the plot.

And Sunday morning she heard the sermon only marginally. Everything revolved around this grant.

After church Ric took them to brunch at the café in Star City. As Todd contentedly colored in the new coloring book his Sunday school teacher had given him, Ric and Lily leafed through the Bismarck newspaper.

They were discussing the interesting things they found, such as the man who had a trained hedgehog (“Why would anyone want to?” Ric asked), when Lily sat up straight.

“Listen to this, Ric. ‘Nanny Group Director Indicted.’ ”

“What? What does it say?”

“It’s not much. It’s just a short little bit. ‘Douglas Newton, 43, director of Chicago’s Nanny Group, was indicted earlier this week on charges of embezzlement, misappropriation of funds, and larceny, based upon an auditing of the nonprofit organization’s records. Further charges are expected soon, but a source close to the organization said the investigation was focused solely on Newton.’ ”

“Wow. They got him.” Ric laid down the sports section. “This means—”

“Yes. It means I’ll probably be called to testify.” Her chin rose just a bit. “I’m ready.”

Ric didn’t say anything else, but she knew he was worried—and what he was worried about.

This news might jeopardize the funding that was so necessary for the day care’s survival at Resurrection. Just being associated with that kind of criminal activity might tar her with the same brush. She had to face that.

The timing couldn’t be worse. She knew the mayor’s office had to be careful with the money they distributed through these grants.

Would they yank whatever appropriation she might get in light of the bad publicity something like this might generate?

It was a very real possibility.

And it was an ugly one.